Not Even Saudi Arabia Can Save Us From High Oil Prices

With oil prices soaring ever higher, Saudi Arabia stepped in last week and vowed to increase its production by 25% if necessary. But while that assurance managed to siphon a few dollars off of oil futures, the reality is there's nothing Saudi Arabia - or anyone else, for that matter - can do about rising oil prices. In fact, crude is still on track to reach $150 a barrel by mid-summer. Latest Oil Prices Crude Oil May 2012 EOD 105.23 2.21 As Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi pointed out last week, current oil supplies already exceed global demand by 1 million-2 million barrels per day. For its part, Saudi Arabia is already breaking its own OPEC-imposed production quota limit, churning out about 10 million barrels of oil per day - close to its 12.5 million barrel capacity. Yet the effect of that production has been negligible.